POLITIC \1. F.n.VoMY. 



lo (he number of theme- handled in mir . 



uil university. 



loliial times these iiuestimi.- ic not much 

 agitated, American ideas being in this field as in 

 rs little more than reproductions of tlm-c of 

 England. It was the propos.il to place the national 

 finances upon a better footing by appointing a -uper 

 viapr of finance which incited Peletiah Wcb-ter to 

 write his 1'iliticiil tMai/* (17M) Similarly it 

 1 -' Sheffield*! .\nn-rii-nn I'-minui-i-? (17>. i) which 



provoked Tench Co.xc to reply in his l9aMttM<MM 

 of that audacious book, showing that the colonies 

 liad not |ilun.ired into commercial ruin hy achieving 

 their indejHMidenee, luit had at hand nil the elements 

 of industrial pros|ierity. and were quite able to take 

 care ol' themselves. After the formation of " a more 

 : union" under the Constitution, the duty of 

 chief adviser of the country in economical matters 

 fell upon Alexander Hamilton, the greatest states- 

 man of his age, in Nielmhr's estimation. His Trea*- 



tiry Jffjxirt on the Tariff (1791) and on a national 

 bank (1790). together with his practical administra- 

 tion of our finances, laid the foundation of Ameri- 



can policy in these matters. Not that there were 

 no theoretical dissenters from the national policy. 

 The fact that Adam Smith's \\~ealtk of Nations was 

 thrice reprinted in the United States, and that Say's 

 treatise appeared here in an early translation, denote 

 the contrary. Two other foreign text-liooks were 

 the translations of Destutt de Tracy published in 1*17, 

 with an introduction by Jefferson, and of Charles 

 (janilli in I* 12. 



The agitation over the tariff after the second war 

 with Great Britain produced a shower of pamphlets, 

 of which the most notable are those of Mathew 

 Carey : Addrate* nf thr Philadelphia ,V-iWi/ (isiti) : 

 The A Brandt (is:.*)); E*sny on fblitual 



Economy (ISHU). The same, discussion produced our 

 first attempts at a systematic presentation of the 

 ccienee: Daniel Raymond's Elrmml* nf Piililirnl 

 ";iv (l^j:;,); Thomas Cooper's El<mits "f Po- 



litirul fatiiiomt/ (ISjr.); .-1 .S'l/iHHMirv of tli' 1 i'l-iicli 

 n>l /'-inn'/ilex of Political Economy !>;/ <i ]-'rii-n<l >/ 

 Domestic Indiatru (IS'Jf.) ; Willarrl f'hillips's M-i',,- 

 niil of I'ulilii-iil r'<-iiiininii ir ilk Purfiriilur l~ 

 in tlif Inttitutiont, /. ">iil Condition of the 



I Stutn (ISL'S); Friedrich List's Out! 

 American /'<.////.-.;/ !',-, n,,ini/ (Isi'T). and JeODUOB I 

 Untli'iiix of Political ils^x). All of these 



are vindications of the protectionist policv, except 

 that of Prof. Coonor, of South Carolina (see 

 COOPER, THOMAS), which repeats the iias-iomite prop- 

 aganda of Free Trade which he hail been conducting 

 on congenial soil in the South. He speaks of man- 

 ufactures as though they were little else than a MIL !M 

 to the nation. The works of Raymond and Phillips 

 are written with ability and acuti-n. -- That of List. 

 who was a resident of Pennsylvania at that time. 

 ton shadows the principles of his later NotionalSkm- 



mile (1x41). 



In the next decade the Protectionists are rcpre- 

 only hy Oliver Putnam'.- 7V./.-N ,,,i Smitlrn 

 Political //'I/K.HII/ (|s:;i) and .lohn Rac's 

 -y,/.x ,/ Political l-:.-,n,,,,i t i (\*:\\). lint 

 the work of Hae, by birth a Scotchman, is recog- 

 nized by Senior and Mill as one of the ablest in (he 

 whole field. On the other side we have Prof. Samuel 

 Newman's /'/////..(/ Economy (1835), that of Dr. r-'ran- 

 . -land, of I'.rown I 'niversity, first published in 1 M^ 

 and often reprinted, before its recast by Prof. Chapin 

 (1886); and Henry C. Carey's Element* of Politico! 

 Economy (1837-4<i). I)r. Wayland's wasoneof the moM 

 superficial books ever written on the subject, bin 

 clear and graceful style gave it the greatest popnl 

 nver enjoyed by any economic text -book in Aim 

 Mr Carey's Elrmmt* represent his first stage, in which 

 hi- revolution of the accepted teachings of Political 

 Economy, so far from bringing him into collision with 



nV principle, had made him an earnest a- 



: ii On the same side was his friend Cmidy 

 > On ('iirrtiifi/ innl lliiJciiuj 



Hid I'rinri/Jrx nf 1 in), to- 



gether with the three eeonomie periodicals he success- 



lited. entitle him to remembrance as an acute 

 and forcible writer. 



The adoption of the protective tariff of 1S42 marks 

 a turning-point in the development of Mr. Carey's 

 ideas. Neither then nor afterwards did he abandon 

 those oonvietii ms which arrayed him against the "dis- 

 mal science" of the Ktiglish economists. He re- 

 maiiH'd a i litional uptimist in his In-lief that " Men 



MI what i- worse to what is better in land, in la- 

 bor, and in food. " He still asserted that the economic 

 laws were designed to secure a constantly increasing 

 return for human labor in subduing nature, and thus 

 reducing values, and to effect a more equal distribution 

 ii capitalist and workman, between landlord and 

 tenant. He still contended that where the misery, of 

 the savage is found within the scope of civilization, 

 somebody is to blame. But the effects of the nation's 

 return to the protective policy satisfied him, after some 

 years of reflection and further study, that he had 

 underestimated the power of the wealthier and more 

 advanced countries to check the growth of economic 

 association in others, and to secure to themselves what 

 Knglish economists taught were the more remuner- 

 ative induMries. After several years of silence he 

 announced his new conclusions in The J'ust, tlie Pret- 

 nit mid tin- Future. (1848) and in The Harmony of 

 the Interest* (1850). In the meantime four other 

 authors had announced the same inferences from our 

 economic experience : A Southern Planter in \<-tr* 

 nn I'nli'tiriil Seonotnti <i* appKeabte to the United 

 Stutrt (1844); Ezra C. Seeman in his Proprest of 

 \ntion* (1846-68) ; Rev. Calvin Colton. the fhend and 

 biographer of Henry Clay, in his PulJIc Economy for 

 the l',,;tf,l State* (1848); and Willard Phillips in his 

 l'i-i>ini*ItioMi C'oiiciTiiiiir/ Pi'oti'i-ti'iiii n/iil Free Trade 

 (ls:>ii). a searching examination of Adam Smith's 

 principles On the other side the most notable publi- 

 cation was the Trniimiy Ri-port of Mr. Robert J. 

 Walker in 1840, which may be said to have been 

 an.-wered by that of Mr. William M. Meredith in 1S4'.I. 

 The decade before the civil war was taken up with 

 the discussion of Slavery, and it is notable that its 

 moderate opponents, such as Dr. Channing. pressed 

 the consideration that it was an economic mistake, as 

 has been proven since the war. On the Free Trade 

 siile at tliis time there appeared a short systematic 

 treatise by (Jeorge Opdyke, of New York, in I?C>1. 

 which aims at anew treatment of the subject, but made 

 little impression : J'lliticul faoiionty fur tlte People 



by the veteran lieorge Tucker, of Virginia, who 

 in 1837, 1839, and 1857 had published works on the 

 currency; and Tlir Si-li-nn- of \\'<-nlth, a Manual of 

 I'lHtlciil l:'i-n,i,iiiii/. by Ama.-a \\'alker. a practical 

 banker.-who also was lecturer on the subject in Aui- 

 ' 'ollcge. It was by far the ablest of the ortho- 

 dox treatises which had appeared in this country, and 

 reached its lit'lh edition alter its author's death. On 

 the protectionist side are AtMpbi '/ Political 

 Economy (1S35) by K IV.-hine Smith, a disciiile 

 of Carey, hut with a good deal of originality of liis 

 own; Prof. Francis Bowen's Prin !/// //' Politi>;il 

 J-'coiintii;/ (1S;")4) ; the translation of Friedrich last's 

 \iiiioiitit A'C" nomjt (is:,-), with an elaborate historical 

 and critical " Introduction" by Stephen Colwell, whose 

 own book on the currency problem, The ]\'nyt ami 

 Mfiiix f' l'ii/iii, >it (IS'i'.i). never has been surpa--e.i 

 either in historical learning or wealth of practical sug 

 /estion. Above all Henry C. Carev in IS.'iS-.V.t pub 

 lished his own -y.-tciii in definitive sliape in his Si/xti'iii 

 which has been translated into more 



i < than any other economic work except per- 

 h.ips tho-e ol' Adam Smiih and J. Stuart Mill. 



The next decade dSiiih-Tn) saw few books on the 



